Some Petty Thoughts
Much to my surprise, last night I was gifted with tickets to see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in concert. This is their 30th anniversary together, which means I’ve been listening to his music most of my life, and I was ecstatic at the chance to see him live.
I’ve not gone to many big-name concerts. Most of my live performance budget goes to dance, or plays, or smaller bands. I’ve seen Bare Naked Ladies, Manhattan Transfer, David Bowie, and Robert Cray, but that’s about it for the big names…oh, and James Taylor, years ago.
His performance astonished me, I should add. I’d expected an old, slow, cheesy elevator-music kind of performance (I was only going because my girlfriend at the time wanted me to). Instead, I got a vibrant, exciting, foot-stomping heart-pounding rockin’ time. That’s when I realized: some people get better with practice.
That definitely applied last night. The opening band, Dandy Warhol, was (in the words of my friend Iris) a fine band. Musically, they were adequate–I didn’t especially want to buy their music, but I didn’t leave my seat. But there was no real working the crowd, no interaction–it was more like we were watching a rehearsal, or they were playing music for each other and we happened to be around.
Then Tom Petty took the stage…and was a master. It was all about the timing. He knew how to talk to the crowd and make us feel like he was talking to us, not at us. He accepted the applause that we gave him, not as his right, but as a gift, and even when the lights formed what I called in my head “Saint Tom” (see the blurry picture–have to get a better camera phone!) he was grinning wryly, as if saying “Look how silly those tech guys are!”
And the music…what can I say? When you’ve been playing for 30 years, it shows. The set was structured to have calmer moments, moments of introspection, and the encore was perfect (mainly because it led off with my favorite song, “Running Down a Dream”). He also put in a few covers of songs by bands such as the Yardbirds, and didn’t stint on songs from other groups like the Traveling Wilburys (I wondered, at that part, how it felt playing songs from a band with members who were dead; then again, another member, Bob Dylan, just returned to the charts.)
Mix into that a really amazing light and video show, and it was immensely satisfying. They’re still on tour; I couldn’t recommend a better way to spend an evening.
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